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Native visionOS platform support

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Re: Native visionOS platform support

#51

Post by jchw »

azinman2 wrote: post #38
skeptrune wrote: post #32

Insane that Apple put this PR up without at all contributing to the development fund. Didn't even put up an issue first haha.

If they did the work, what’s wrong with that?

There's more to development than just code. I'm sure the Godot developers value the contribution and will try to make the most of it, but they got zero input into how to implement it and this PR contains a lot of issues (e.g. it does some API breaking changes that can't just be done as-is.) On top of that, they have no idea (from the outset, I mean: obviously they are communicating now) if Apple intends to continue maintaining this code in the long run or if they just want to put the minimum amount of effort into shipping it and then consider that box checked, shifting the maintenance burden to volunteers. I don't think there needs to be intentional malice, even very nice gestures can work out poorly; we almost lost the Linux NTFS3 driver because Paragon initially stopped maintaining it and nobody else stepped up.

I think Apple can do good here but they should definitely communicate better. For open source, early and often is a good idea. (Though also good to follow through... I have been guilty of many licked cookies purely by accident and poor focus.)

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#52

Post by dewey »

andsoitis wrote: post #50
klausa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As far as I know, iOS support on Godot is almost entirely community-driven. Yes, and now it has gotten to the point where it clearly has been noticed by Apple; and they're eager to contribute back to it too. Is that not... the ideal scenario here? You have community contribute a port for a big platform, the company notices, and starts contributing too.

> Apple; and they're eager to contribute back to it too. To think Apple is interested in the success of Godot would be a mistake. It might feel like a compliment, but it would be a trap because Apple’s interest stems from increasing the chances of visionOS success and will be happy to externalize the ongoing maintenance tax to Godot. Unless Godot feels they need visionOS then it isn’t in their interest to entertain A…

Did you get burned by a company contributing to an open source project before or what makes you so cynical about this PR? I feel like it's the ideal scenario that a company actually dedicates engineers and time to contribute to an open source project instead of doing their own thing, maybe even behind closed doors.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#53

Post by KeplerBoy »

andsoitis wrote: post #48
KeplerBoy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are however some games which thrive on apple tv. The virtual cycling game zwift is probably one of the most important apple tv games, it's the recommended system to get the game running on the cheap. So, if you're making an app that benefits from a big screen and your customers are willing to buy a cheap dedicated device to easily use your app on a big screen, supporting apple tv might be a very sensible choice…

> if you're making an app that benefits from a big screen and your customers are willing to buy a cheap dedicated device to easily use your app on a big screen, supporting apple tv might be a very sensible choice. Compared to other HDMI-connected devices (e.g. Google Streamer fka ChromeCast, Amazon FireTV, Roku) or major TV platforms like Android TV or Samsung and LG, the market share that Apple TV commands is dwarfe…

Meh, I'd say it's a cheap addition when you already have to support iOS and iPadOS devices. Also market share is secondary if people are willing to buy it as a dedicated device and it is cheap (130$) when talking about people's expenditures for this hobby.

But yeah, I'm not an Insider and I'd love to know why they're supporting the apple tv but don't offer the Android App on the Google tv platform. Maybe something about non universal remote inputs or the wildly varying hw capabilities leading to support nightmares (but that's always an issue on Android).

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#54

Post by andsoitis »

dewey wrote: post #52
andsoitis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple; and they're eager to contribute back to it too. To think Apple is interested in the success of Godot would be a mistake. It might feel like a compliment, but it would be a trap because Apple’s interest stems from increasing the chances of visionOS success and will be happy to externalize the ongoing maintenance tax to Godot. Unless Godot feels they need visionOS then it isn’t in their interest to entertain A…

Did you get burned by a company contributing to an open source project before or what makes you so cynical about this PR? I feel like it's the ideal scenario that a company actually dedicates engineers and time to contribute to an open source project instead of doing their own thing, maybe even behind closed doors.

I’m invested in the success of Godot and fear the visionOS distraction dilutes the urgency that’s needed to compete with Unreal and Unity.

Additionally, if Godot accepts this PR and related ongoing work, it would signal to me poor strategic judgment.

Many an open source project progress slows down under the burden of supporting immaterial platforms.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#55

Post by __m »

mvkel wrote: post #24
fixprix wrote: post #18

Looks like Apple might be prioritizing gaming for the next gen Vision devices? Hopefully, as I know many, myself included that passed on the Vision because the gaming support wasn't there. Price was never an issue.

It would be strange if they went about it this way, as it gives the godot community some unprecedented control over apple's release schedule

My fear is that they won't treat godot first class and release updates for unity first. That kind of first class support would be required for me to switch from unity.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#56

Post by singularity2001 »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #33
fixprix wrote: post #18

Looks like Apple might be prioritizing gaming for the next gen Vision devices? Hopefully, as I know many, myself included that passed on the Vision because the gaming support wasn't there. Price was never an issue.

Does anyone in the industry care about VR gaming right now? I don't see people buying headsets, I don't see VR features in new major games, it's just not a thing outside of a probably shrinking niche.

Lookup GorillaTag a surprise smash hit that made half $1 billion(!) revenue on the Meta quest!

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#57

Post by josephg »

skeptrune wrote: post #36
andsoitis wrote: post #27

Godot already supports VR via OpenXR. OpenXR is the Khronos-maintained industry standard for VR/AR devices—supported by SteamVR, Oculus, Vive, Pico, Windows Mixed Reality, Quest. Notably absent is visionOS / Vision Pro. I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard. More scalable, open.

> The visionOS platform doesn't have OpenGL support, as it's not supported by visionOS. Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard. They even failed to follow the Godot contribution guide for the PR itself.

> Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard.

Better get some blankets because Apple has made significant contributions to many open standards - for example, USB-C. And, back in the day, OpenGL.

Its a mistake to think of a large company like apple as if it were a person, with their own goals and ideas. Apple is just too big for that. I mean, they have 164,000 staff. Thats big enough that "small" business units will still have thousands of people. So each area will end up creating its own culture, and have its own way of doing things.

The graphics division - these days - seems very intent on doing their own thing. But that doesn't tell us much about the rest of apple. 164 000 people is a lot of people. That's an awful lot of different opinions about open standards.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#58

Post by bigyabai »

eksu wrote: post #43
skeptrune wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The visionOS platform doesn't have OpenGL support, as it's not supported by visionOS. Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard. They even failed to follow the Godot contribution guide for the PR itself.

OpenGL is quite dated for VR/AR. In the Apple ecosystem they supported OpenGL 4.1 for quite some time before moving to Metal, which was announced 2 years before Vulkan. If you spent the time developing an in house graphics API since open standards weren’t moving forward, why would you rewrite everything a second time just a few years later? Shouldn’t you expect to get a decade or two out of your existing API and only…

In an ideal world, Apple would have just built DirectX and sold the Xbox too. But you can't look at it from an executive's perspective, you have to look at it from the developer's point-of-view. This insistence on high-investment, low-ROI APIs is why the Mac doesn't have games. If you run the Metal playbook with VR again, you will have developers outright abandon you. We've already seen what happens.

Apple's GPUs support a decent chunk of the Vulkan featureset, you can go boot it up on an M1 with Asahi. Same goes for OpenXR. These are things that Apple neglects because they want to use their customerbase as leverage to market proprietary APIs. This hurts users, because Apple has neither industry-leading standards nor the leverage to force the industry to adapt. And they sure as hell lack the humility to just support both in the name of fair competition.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#59

Post by andsoitis »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #53
andsoitis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're making an app that benefits from a big screen and your customers are willing to buy a cheap dedicated device to easily use your app on a big screen, supporting apple tv might be a very sensible choice. Compared to other HDMI-connected devices (e.g. Google Streamer fka ChromeCast, Amazon FireTV, Roku) or major TV platforms like Android TV or Samsung and LG, the market share that Apple TV commands is dwarfe…

Meh, I'd say it's a cheap addition when you already have to support iOS and iPadOS devices. Also market share is secondary if people are willing to buy it as a dedicated device and it is cheap (130$) when talking about people's expenditures for this hobby. But yeah, I'm not an Insider and I'd love to know why they're supporting the apple tv but don't offer the Android App on the Google tv platform. Maybe something ab…

> cheap addition when you already have to support iOS and iPadOS devices.

Presentation form factor and input modality is different on LRUD compared to touch, 10’ vs handheld.

There’s an opportunity cost: it is better to improve the user experience on the vast majority of TV devices (eg Samsung or Android TV or Fire tv) than it is to support a tiny market share device like Apple TV that you now also need to keep up to date.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#60

Post by willtemperley »

skeptrune wrote: post #36
andsoitis wrote: post #27

Godot already supports VR via OpenXR. OpenXR is the Khronos-maintained industry standard for VR/AR devices—supported by SteamVR, Oculus, Vive, Pico, Windows Mixed Reality, Quest. Notably absent is visionOS / Vision Pro. I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard. More scalable, open.

> The visionOS platform doesn't have OpenGL support, as it's not supported by visionOS. Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard. They even failed to follow the Godot contribution guide for the PR itself.

> Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard.

Why the vitriol?

Apple did in fact initiate and co-create the WebGPU standard [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGPU

Edit to include quote of parent comment.

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